


so come on and let me know

by Sholio



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Banter, Friendship, Gen, Monster Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 09:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18140642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Team, Steve thought. Huh.





	so come on and let me know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glorious_spoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/gifts).



> For a request on Tumblr for Steve and Jonathan bonding while hunting monsters.

Before last year, Steve could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd been in the woods at night, and most of those were summer camp (which he'd generally hated). Steve was not an outdoor kind of guy. He was a chilling-at-the-Dairy-Queen kind of guy, a cruising-on-the-highway-in-a-cool-car kind of guy, a hanging-out-at-the-mall kind of guy.

The winter-dead branches rattled overhead and he took a quick step back and nearly ran into Jonathan.

"Careful," Jonathan muttered, swinging the homemade flamethrower around to the other side of his body.

_"You_ be careful," Steve retorted, aware that he wasn't exactly acting his age, but damn it, he was freaked out and hungry and there were a lot of things he'd rather be doing than looking for creepy possibly-sentient plants in the woods with his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend.

It didn't really help that Jonathan hadn't said five words tonight since they'd met behind the laundromat, and Steve was pretty sure that being out here in the woods with him was the last thing Jonathan wanted either. It had just been the luck of the draw; out of the handful of people who were in the "monster plants and demodogs" conspiracy club, the Chief wouldn't let the kids go in the woods alone, and Nancy had a thing tonight with her folks, while the Chief had unspecified business somewhere else. So here they were. Being together was marginally preferable than being out here alone.

"We should recruit some more people," Steve said, pushing a branch out of the way.

Eventually Jonathan said, "Who, though?"

"I dunno. Hargrove?"

In the backwash from their flashlights, Jonathon looked baffled.

"We could feed him to the monsters," Steve explained. "Throw him at them and run."

This didn't even get a tiny smile. Oh well. So much for trying to lighten up the mood. Also, while he was looking back at Jonathan, he stepped into a mud hole and went up to his knee.

Steve cursed, pulling his leg out. "Where the hell are we?"

"I think this is the swamp behind the Anderson farm," Jonathan said, shining his light around.

Two steps later, it was Jonathan's turn to go up to his knee in a different mud hole, and then Steve stepped in a cow pat.

"I hate everything about this night," Steve snapped, trying to scrape off his foot on what he discovered belatedly was a patch of stinging nettles.

"It could be worse."

"How?" Steve asked bleakly.

"It could be raining."

*

Ten minutes later, clouds covered the moon and a drop of rain hit Steve's nose.

"No," Steve said flatly, to the world, which clearly hated him.

The drop of rain brought eleven million of its buddies and soon they were slogging along in a downpour.

"Sorry," Jonathan said.

Steve looked around, swinging his flashlight to illuminate Jonathan with rain running off his nose and dripping off his hair. He really _did_ look sorry, in a Byers-esque hangdog kind of way, and for some reason that was what made Steve crack up and start laughing.

Jonathan stared at him, looking vaguely offended.

"Sorry," Steve gasped, leaning on a tree to get his breath back. He shook his head, waving his hand and trying to figure out how to explain. "It's just ... this is _stupid,_ this whole thing is so stupid, and anyway, you didn't make it rain, did you? Unless weather control powers run in the family. Which would be useful, by the way."

This finally got a tiny, meek smile out of Jonathan. "No," he said. "Sorry. No weather control."

Steve leaned against his tree and looked up at the sky. At least the rain was washing off the mud and cowshit. "You know what? If we're at the Anderson farm, we're at least a half mile off course, but we're also right next to the road. And we not only haven't seen a single stupid plant all night, but I bet we couldn't even get the things to burn in this downpour anyway. Why don't we just call it a night and walk back to the cars and go _home."_

"Yeah," Jonathan said after a minute, and there was another little smile. "Yeah, let's do that."

They started walking again, and after a little while Steve got to thinking about how Jonathan had been the one to show up with the whole unwieldy mess of the flamethrower because they were storing it at Mrs. Byers' house, and Steve had just taken point without saying anything (because he didn't _want_ to carry it, and he might as well get some perks for having to be out here with Jonathan when he didn't want to be). And Jonathan had just been carrying it all night, uncomplaining. Steve cleared his throat. "Uh ... you want me to take a turn carrying that?" 

"Yeah, sure," Jonathan said, one step short of eager, and he unloaded the straps and the tank and all that stuff onto Steve. (They'd built it a few weeks ago at the Chief's cabin, under the Chief's direction -- well, technically Jonathan and Nancy had -- and then they'd practiced by the old quarry lake, but Steve had never actually had a chance to use it on plants in the field. However, he figured he had a leg up since he had some experience at setting plants on fire with the rugrats.)

It was, however, a pain in the ass to carry.

After they'd walked for another little while, Jonathan said, "Hey, you know, your idea about Hargrove ..."

"It wasn't really an idea."

"Yeah, I know, but it's not really a bad idea, I mean, we don't have anybody expendable on the team."

We're a team? Steve thought, giving Jonathan a startled look in the rain.

"And you know, if you watch movies, there's got to be someone expendable," Jonathan went on. He was so deadpan that Steve was pretty sure he was joking. Mostly.

"Redshirts," Steve said, to prove that he'd been paying attention when the rugrats rattled on about geek stuff.

"Yeah," Jonathan said, sounding surprised.

"I nominate Hargrove."

"I bet we could find a few other people," Jonathan said.

"Tommy H and Carol," Steve said.

"Aren't they your friends?"

"They haven't talked to me in a year."

"Oh," Jonathan said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Steve said, and he meant it, even though it was still weird when Tommy H's clique would brush past him in the hallways and try to knock his books out of his hands.

"My dad," Jonathan said, and that cut so close to the bone that neither of them said anything for a little while, and Steve got the feeling that Jonathan sort of wished he hadn't said that.

Just as Steve was starting to think they'd taken a wrong turn and were going to be wandering around these woods in the rain forever, they came out on the edge of the road. There was the pumpkin farm sign: they were just about a mile from where they'd left the cars.

"You ... wanna come back to my place before you go home?" Jonathan asked. When Steve gave him a quick look, he had his head down, shoulders hunched up. "I mean, you could get dry, and that'd make it easier to sneak back into your folks' place without them noticing. And ... Mom usually makes cocoa, when I'm out like this. It's just from a mix, but. So."

"Yeah, sure, thanks," Steve said after a minute. He forgot, sometimes, that Jonathan had it easier in some ways than the rest of them, because his mom was in on it, so he didn't have to sneak in and out. (Though he did have to explain to Mrs. Byers where he was going when he went out at night. On the whole, Steve thought he might prefer sneaking in and out.)

"Okay," Jonathan said, and he gave another of those little smiles.

Team, Steve thought. Huh. It wasn't like he wasn't used to being part of a team (that was his whole entire _life_ , as a jock, or at least it used to be), and on some level he thought it was pretty pathetic and really a sign of how his entire life was going lately that his new "team" consisted mainly of nerds and social outcasts and middle schoolers, and yet ...

... and yet, it was pretty nice to hear.

And he could really use a cup of cocoa.


End file.
